Eu·ginger–noun
1. A redhead born in or currently residing in Eugene, OR.
Eu·ge·net·ics–noun
1. The scientific study of the principles of heredity and the variation of inherited traits among related organisms living in Eugene.

Norman, Jane and I took a road trip this weekend to visit our friend Erin and her family. We spent a couple of nights in the college town and I got to experience a bit of the local customs. Here are a couple of noteworthy items.

People: Much to Norman’s approval, there was a high ginger population in the town. It seemed like every time I turned a corner, there was another freckled face tucked behind a Dayglo orange mop top. Nobody was using props to make me laugh.

Since the University is in town, there were plenty of young folks on the streets being hip. I don’t often feel old, but somehow I did.

City: Flat. Smells like patchouli.

Nightlife: We went to the only gay bar in town. Pulled straight from a Twin Peaks set, the bar featured wood logs for seats, private cubby holes that you needed to jump into, and lots of cheetah print. There were a couple of foreign bartenders dancing, clapping randomly, and acting generally like “Two wild and crazy guys”.

“I feel like I’m in Des Moines,” Norman said early into the night.

I’m assuming all of the dance music was from Russia too because we didn’t recognize any of it. The people that were dancing did some sort of hippie gyration that must involve a drug that I’m not about to ingest. It was a cross between rave and interpretive dance. If it wasn’t so scary it would have been pretty funny.

Bicycles: The true test of how nice a city is. I was pleased to find that Eugene is (much like the rest of Oregon) very bicycle friendly. In fact, it is almost disturbing just how bike friendly it is. All of the lanes have big wide bike lanes and plenty of lights. I was told that drivers are 100% at fault for accidents in town too. I haven’t done the research on that, but it wouldn’t surprise me at bit. With all of the shoulders and bike awareness, I would assume that people would be comfortable riding in the street. No, most of the traffic was on the sidewalk trying to run us down if we didn’t move. Nobody had proper lighting and few had helmets.

That brings us to the bikes themselves. Out of a hundred bicycles, I think that I saw one nice bike. One. There was an old Peugeot that would have passed for nice, but someone vomited a gel seat and flat bars on it. The rest of the bikes were a mix of Frankenstein mountain bikes and beach cruisers. I suppose if I lived in a city that flat I wouldn’t need a bike that went over 8mph either.

Needless to say, we all had a good time. Despite the hatred of my Washington license plates, nobody ran into us.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under bicycling, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.